“It is not impossible for however so many people become tyrants of a city or small country to escape their regime and live somewhere else in hiding. Yet no one loves a tyrant, instead people hate them, are suspicious of them, and easily give them up to those they wronged.
But those who rule over many cities, peoples, and endless land, as the Persian king does, cannot ever escape, not even if they come to understand their troubles when some god frees them of their ignorance. A tyrant could never live safely, not even if he turned into bronze or iron, because even then he’d die, broken into pieces and melted down.”
“What in reality is this desired and famous power of yours? Won’t you, earth-born creatures, contemplate who it is you think you command and how? If you saw one mouse among the rest declaring that he had right and power over them, you would laugh so much! Indeed, if you consider only our body, can you find anything weaker than man, whom a fly often kills with a bite or by burrowing into some internal place? How, truly, is there any control over anyone except over his body or, over what is less important than his body, his fortune? Is there any way to rule a free mind? Is there any way to disturb a mind strengthened by true reason from a state of fundamental peace?
When a tyrant thought he was going to force a free man to betray the men conspiring against him with torture, that man bit his own tongue, severed it, and spat it at the face of the rabid tyrant. Thus, the torture, which the tyrant believed to be a tool of cruelty, the wise man made his weapon of virtue. What, then, is there which anyone could do against a man which he could not have done to himself by another?”
Quae vero est ista vestra expetibilis ac praeclara potentia? Nonne, o terrena animalia, consideratis quibus qui praesidere videamini? Nunc si inter mures videres unum aliquem ius sibi ac potestatem prae ceteris vindicantem, quanto movereris cachinno! Quid vero, si corpus spectes, inbecillius homine reperire queas quos saepe muscularum quoque vel morsus vel in secreta quaeque reptantium necat introitus? Quo vero quisquam ius aliquod in quempiam nisi in solum corpus et quod infra corpus est, fortunam loquor, possit exserere? Num quidquam libero imperabis animo? Num mentem firma sibi ratione cohaerentem de statu propriae quietis amovebis? Cum liberum quendam virum suppliciis se tyrannus adacturum putaret, ut adversum se factae coniurationis conscios proderet, linguam ille momordit atque abscidit et in os tyranni saevientis abiecit; ita cruciatus, quos putabat tyrannus materiam crudelitatis, vir sapiens fecit esse virtutis. Quid autem est quod in alium facere quisquam possit, quod sustinere ab alio ipse non possit?
“Citizens, it is always right to hate and hinder traitors and corrupt people, but at this current moment, this would be necessary help to all humankind. For a terrible and harsh sickness has come over our country, one which needs great luck and your constant attention.”
“I said, well, these minor crimes are small in comparison to serious ones but all of these are not one step in the direction—as the proverb goes—to the evil and suffering a tyrant introduces. For whenever there are many people like this and others who follow them and they sense how large their followers are, then these are the people who produce a tyrant with the ignorance of the people, a man who has the biggest and most tyrant-like nature in his soul.”
“I think that fantasy ministers to everyone in turn.
If you merely appear to do but do not, you fail.
Thus Krotôn, his own country, killed Philolaos,
Because he thought it might be nice to have a tyrant’s home.”
Over the past few months, I have been thinking about Peisistratos [more commonly, Pisistratus] and the games he played to gain and regain power in Athens. I have no idea why.
Herodotus, 1.59
Peisistratos becomes a tyrant through histrionic lies
“After that, [Hippokrates] had a son named Peisistratos. Then the Athenians on the coasts were in strife with those who lived inland and Megakles, the son of Almeôn, was the leader of the first group, and Lykourgos the son of Aristolaidos was the leader of the inlanders. Peisistratos, because he had designs on a tyranny, led a third faction; after he gathered his partisans and claimed to be a defender of the heartland-Greeks, he enacted the following plans. He wounded himself and his mules and then drove his wagon into the marketplace as if he had fled enemies who wished to kill him as he was traveling to the country. Because of this, he asked the people for a bodyguard under his power, since he had previously earned good repute as a general against the Megarians when he took Nisaia and displayed many other great accomplishments. The Athenian people, utterly deceived, permitted him to choose from the citizens men three hundred men who were not spear-bearers under Peisistratus but club-carriers: for they followed behind him, carrying clubs. Once these men rebelled with Peisistratos, they occupied the acropolis.”
Peisistratos is exiled after ruling for a short time. But, with the help of a foreign tyrant, regains the tyranny through more deceit and stupidity
Herodotus, 1.60
“Once Peisistratos accepted this argument and agreed to these proposals, they devised the dumbest plan for his return that I can find, by far, if, even then, those in Athens, said to be among the first of the Greeks in wisdom, devised these things. (From antiquity, the Greek people have been set apart from barbarians by being more clever and freer from silly stupidity). In the country there was a Paianiean woman—her name was Phuê—and she was three inches short of six feet and altogether fine looking. After they dressed her up in a panoply, they put her in a chariot, and adorned her with the kind of scene which would make her a completely conspicuous sight to be seen. Then they drove her into the city, sending heralds out in front of her, who were announcing after they entered the city the words they had been assigned, saying something like “O Athenians, receive Peisistratos with a good thought, a man Athena herself honored beyond all men as she leads him to her own acropolis.” They went everywhere saying these things. And as soon as the rumor circulated among the people, they believed that the woman was Athena herself: then they were praying to the woman and were welcoming Peisistratos!
After he regained the tyranny in the way I have narrated, Peisistratos married the daughter of Megakles in accordance with the agreement they made. But because he already had young sons and since the family of the Alkmeaonids were said to be cursed, he did not wish to have children with his newly wedded wife, and he was not having sex with her according to custom…”
“What in reality is this desired and famous power of yours? Won’t you, earth-born creatures, contemplate who it is you think you command and how? If you saw one mouse among the rest declaring that he had right and power over them, you would laugh so much! Indeed, if you consider only our body, can you find anything weaker than man, whom a fly often kills with a bite or by burrowing into some internal place? How, truly, is there any control over anyone except over his body or, over what is less important than his body, his fortune? Is there any way to rule a free mind? Is there any way to disturb a mind strengthened by true reason from a state of fundamental peace?
When a tyrant thought he was going to force a free man to betray the men conspiring against him with torture, that man bit his own tongue, severed it, and spat it at the face of the rabid tyrant. Thus, the torture, which the tyrant believed to be a tool of cruelty, the wise man made his weapon of virtue. What, then, is there which anyone could do against a man which he could not have done to himself by another?”
Quae vero est ista vestra expetibilis ac praeclara potentia? Nonne, o terrena animalia, consideratis quibus qui praesidere videamini? Nunc si inter mures videres unum aliquem ius sibi ac potestatem prae ceteris vindicantem, quanto movereris cachinno! Quid vero, si corpus spectes, inbecillius homine reperire queas quos saepe muscularum quoque vel morsus vel in secreta quaeque reptantium necat introitus? Quo vero quisquam ius aliquod in quempiam nisi in solum corpus et quod infra corpus est, fortunam loquor, possit exserere? Num quidquam libero imperabis animo? Num mentem firma sibi ratione cohaerentem de statu propriae quietis amovebis? Cum liberum quendam virum suppliciis se tyrannus adacturum putaret, ut adversum se factae coniurationis conscios proderet, linguam ille momordit atque abscidit et in os tyranni saevientis abiecit; ita cruciatus, quos putabat tyrannus materiam crudelitatis, vir sapiens fecit esse virtutis. Quid autem est quod in alium facere quisquam possit, quod sustinere ab alio ipse non possit?
